Members of several political parties, including MDMK and VCK, and a few Tamil activists staged a protest in front of Government Royapettah Hospital on Saturday, demanding that the inspector responsible for the death of a 45-year-old Sri Lankan at Pallikaranai police station be charged with murder.

Police said K Mohan of Medavakkam, who was handed over to the Pallikaranai police by Central Crime Branch sleuths in a fake passport case, collapsed during interrogation and died at a private hospital on Friday.

On Saturday, a magistrate, P Vidhya, began a probe to find out whether Mohan died due to torture by the Pallikaranai police. She visited Government Royapettah Hospital (GRH) where postmortem was done on Mohan's body was done. The whole process was video-graphed, Times of India said.

Earlier, the magistrate spent about two hours with Mohan's family members, recording their statements and claims in the case. Some of them, according to the Times of India report, told police that the magistrate patiently recorded the minutest of details pertaining to Mohan.

Just before the magistrate's arrival at the GRH morgue, members of VCK and MDMK blocked traffic for about 10 minutes before police talked to them and dispersed them.

(With inputs from Times of India)